Broken Bride
by half-hearted heroine
Summary: Marty desperately travels through time to save Jennifer, fighting pterodactyls and apocalyptic zombies along the way. Inspired by the "Broken Bride" rock opera by Ludo. Post-trilogy, mostly canon-compliant. Complete!
1. Pt 1: Broken Bride

**A/N: Hello out there! So, as the summary says, this is the combination of the Back To The Future characters with the rock opera "Broken Bride" by Ludo. The Traveller, of Ludo fame, is now our dear Marty, and other characters fall into place along the way. I don't own the characters, or the plot, technically. Huh. I guess I'm only responsible for mashing them together.**

**Enough of stuff from me. Let's get the story started!**

I promised Doc that I'd never time travel again.

While huddled in a cave hiding from pterodactyls, I realized that I probably should have kept this promise.

My time machine (courtesy the rejected blueplans Doc left in the lab) was being inspected by a curious pterodactyl, as it tapped away at the windows. It was fascinated, I thought, by the mere presence of machinery in the heavy vegetation of whatever damned time period I had landed in. Or maybe it was just the flashing lights on the dashboard. I don't know. I hoped it wouldn't be able to get inside. I doubted it would be able to start the time-travel sequence, but any damage to the Delorean would most likely prevent me from ever being able to leave.

I waited in the damp cave, urging the pterodactyl to leave so I could get to my original destination. It was taking forever, and I felt my old teenaged impatience rising up as I watched it take its sweet time poking around. I started pacing in the small space of the cave, scuffing my sneakers against the dirt impatiently.

Before you start getting all judgy-judge, saying I'm getting what I deserved for time traveling to the Jurassic period, let me explain. I didn't mean to end up here.

Jennifer is dead.

Or, she will be.

May 28th, 1989. We enjoy a lovely morning together in bed, and then Jennifer leaves for work, never to return again. I am on my way out to meet up with the band, and I just catch the phone. "Your wife…head-on collision…" I can't hear them clearly, but as soon as I realize why they are using the past tense, I drop to my knees and the phone clatters to the kitchen floor.

The next days continue in a roar of static. I see the mangled wreckage of our car as I crunch across the glittery broken glass in the street. I call her parents, then my parents. The funeral happens, with people and tissues and words and closed casket.

I return home but can't go past the front door. Instead, I wander down to Doc's laboratory, needing something familiar. The gadgets line the shelves haphazardly where he left them, and the few salvageable scraps from the Delorean sit patiently on the desk where Jennifer and I had returned them years ago. I pick up the broken flux capacitor, and a small phoenix of hope leaps up in my chest. Hurriedly, I dig through the papers in Doc's desk until I find a blueprint he had left behind.

The hope blossoms.

I replace my suit jacket and tie with one of Doc's old lab coats, preparing for a long night.

I work through three years of long nights to rebuild the Delorean.

I had to change some things on the machine. Instead of activating the car by driving at 88 mph, it now uses a centrifuge that spins reaches 88 mph in a circular motion (and I thought I would never need to know calculus in real life), activated by tugging the emergency break up. The design is a lot rougher than the sleek machine Doc had built, with a lot of exposed wires and loose connections, but I only needed it to work once, to bring me back to 1989. I didn't plan on going back to my original future, empty without Jennifer, so time paradoxes be damned, I was going to save my wife.

As I looked out at the pterodactyl that had finally smashed through my window, I realized that I probably should have made sure the Delorean could work more than once. Or that it would actually send me to the correct destination. I watched anxiously, praying that I'd be able to see Jennifer again, and that my bones wouldn't become a museum display in the future.

**A/N: Thanks for reading! The "Broken Bride" epic is broken into five parts, though I'll probably get the story completed in six chapters. My goal is to have the whole thing done by May 28th... mostly because I need goals to get stuff done. Reviews are delightful too... :)**


	2. Save Our City

**A/N: Sorry it's been a while since I've updated, just started the new job. In the second part of the rock opera, Doc decides to check out how the future is going. Don't worry, the next chapter will be about Marty... the parts will all come together, I promise :)**

Doc twisted the dials of the time machine forward, and checked them three times against his pocket watch. As a scientist, he was nothing if not thorough.

"Did you not hear a word I said?" Clara called from outside the train's cabin.

Doc leaned out of the doorway, smiling sheepishly. "No, dear. What did you say?"

She smiled up at him. "I said to be careful. I don't like the idea of you playing around in the future."

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll be quick, just to grab a newspaper, not going to detract anyone from going around their daily lives. And I'll be back so soon you'll hardly know I was gone."

She backed away from the train carefully. "Back in sixty seconds?"

"Like always, my dear," he said. "Back in sixty seconds. Make sure the boys stay clear of the landing while I'm gone."

He ducked back into the cabin, tugging the proper levers before buckling himself in. Before the time machine's roar built up too loudly, he heard Clara call her goodbye over the engines, and he waved to her through the small window.

He had dubbed himself "The Traveler". Although he had promised Marty that he would never time-travel again, he couldn't resist the allure of knowledge. Knowledge that computers would survive the Y2K virus. Knowledge that the world would continue on past December 21st, 2012. Now it was an obsession: to check up on the world every year to make sure everything was all right. He promised Clara that he would never interfere with anyone's life, just to sneak into the drugstore to buy a newspaper (Doc was especially glad that newspapers had survived into the future). The boys loved Doc's explanations of the amazing technology from the future, and Clara, a history teacher, was fascinated by the politics the papers laid out.

At the peak of the machine's roar, light flashed outside the cabin, and Doc closed his eyes involuntarily. He always wanted to watch his surroundings as he traveled, but the blinding light had never allowed him to test his hypotheses about it.

Red light startled him when he opened his eyes. Surely this couldn't be right. He had traveled to 2:13 p.m., just past lunch hour but before the schoolchildren arrived. May 28, 2115. The dashboard clock was right, and he unhooked his seatbelts carefully. Clambering out of the train, he took a quick look of his surroundings and quickly wished he hadn't.

"Great Scot," he whispered to himself. Although much of the town had changed, some buildings remained familiar to him through his travels. The sky was clouded over with dark thunderheads, and although Doc couldn't see the source of the red light, he suspected he wouldn't like it. He didn't understand the destruction: over half of the buildings had been razed to the ground, and it looked like the remaining stores had been pillaged. The newspapers hadn't even hinted at a looming war. How was this happening?

"Sir!" a young voice called out.

Doc swung around to find the voice. It came from City Hall, from a young teen leaning out of the main doorway. "Sir, you have to get behind the barricade now!"

He started to walk towards the building. "Barricade?" he called. This interaction with a futuristic individual was exactly what he feared most, but the situation seemed to be changing rapidly.

"Yes, sir, they're closing it in—"

A round of gunfire cracked nearby.

Doc jumped and ran towards the door. The boy grabbed his hand and pulled him into the building quickly, slamming the door behind them. "I'd suppose they're closing the barricade sooner than I thought," he said shakily, trying to smile for Doc's benefit.

He looked around at the main antechamber, cramped with construction materials, scaffolding, and people milling nervously about. "I'm not from around here…what's going on?" he asked.

"The Zombies are here," the boy said matter-of-factly. "It was only a matter of time… Hill Valley could only be a hold-out for only so long."

"Zombies?" His mind was whirring. This was a scientific impossibility. "You can't mean, living dead?"

The boy looked at him with an unreadable expression. "You…really aren't from around here, are you. The army. The Zombies," he explained. After getting back a blank stare from Doc, he shook his head. "I gotta get back to my post, sir."

He left Doc in the antechamber, and worked his way through the crowd back to the door. Doc looked around the room. Many people were wailing, clinging to each other, and a preacher stood above them, calling out Scripture passages. Some people, mostly police and teens, were bordering the crowd in a woeful attempt in chaos-management.

"Who are the Zombies?" Doc asked one of the patrolling teens.

"The approaching army. Please remain calm, sir, we will direct the defense at the best moment," the teen recited.

"No, no, are they actually the walking dead?" Doc asked cautiously.

The teen shrugged, readjusting her bullet-proof vest. "No one really knows for sure. They took over way too fast, and we haven't been able to get much consistent information about them. Hill Valley's completely surrounded, and right now, we're just kinda fending off the end," she said weakly.

Doc gasped. He had to get back to the time machine—he was so stupid to have even left it in the first place! Not responding to the teen, he pushed his way through the crowd back to the doors. Two policemen were barricading the door with planks of wood, buckets of paint, and metal piping. "I need to leave!" he shouted to them, trying to pull them back from the doorway. "Please, I need to leave!"

"Sir, stop—stop—" One of the officers turned around and shoved him to the floor. Doc cried out when he landed, imagining that he could hear all of his bones rattling around. "Get him out of here!" he heard an officer order above him. Someone grabbed him roughly under the arms and dragged him back into the crowd.

He sat up, hunched over his knees and rubbing his forehead. This was bad—he had no plan for this, how to survive this, let alone get back to his proper time.

The preacher was still calling out Revelations verses above him, and then shouted, "Let us pray: Lord, save our city, keep our souls safe, through the rapture of this world—"

He repeated the prayer, and the crowd slowly started to join in. Steadily, their monotonous chant started to drown out the sporadic gunfire outside, but Doc felt a sudden panic—why are the police putting down their guns?

A young girl—fleetingly reminding him of Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer—started to climb up the scaffolding behind the preacher.

"Don't just sit there!" she cried out to the crowd as she climbed. "You're giving up! We can't let them take our city without a fight!"

Some people hesitated in their prayers, but the preacher continued on.

"Please! We have to fight back! We will not just sit here while they take over Hill Valley!"

The crowd started to murmur their assent. "How do we fight back?" someone shouted to the girl.

"Anything can be a weapon if you're holding it right!" she cried back. "Pick up anything, defend yourselves with it! We can do this! We can fight back—"

"—keep our souls safe—"

"If we must go down, we go down guns blazing!" she shouted.

The crowd restlessly stirred in the room, passing along construction materials and cheering the girl's encouragements. Someone pressed a metal pipe into Doc's hands, and he stared at it in horror. This was surely a nightmare. He didn't have a plan for this, he was specifically not to interfere with anything—

"Save our city!" the preacher and the girl cried out in unison, and the crowd began to chant it back to them.

"We attack at three!" the girl called out.

The police looked around worriedly, and Doc could tell that their attempt at crowd control was failing. That seemed to be the way all plans were going today. He could only hope he could escape to the time machine mid-battle. The crowd continued to chant around him, while the clock tower ominously chimed above them, warning of the battle to come.

**A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews are fabulous... they cheer me up after a long day at work (guilt trip!) Or if you just want to ask for clarification about something, let me know about it :)**


	3. Pt 2: Tonight's the Night

**A/N: Hello, my lovely readers out there! This third installment is a flashback (sort of, time-travel makes things complicated) to the night Marty finishes the DeLorean, in 1992. Also, I don't know much about the canon members of Marty's band, so I tried to make Roger into a typical punk-rocker-ish guy. Let me know what you think!**

**To recap: Marty rebuilds the DeLorean to save Jennifer from dying in a car accident, but mistakenly ends up in the Jurassic period. Doc, on one of his ordinary mini-vacations to the future, gets caught by Hill Valley citizens as an apocalyptic battle against the Zombies looms near.**

I had checked the dials on the dashboard, the levels of coolant and gasoline, the restraints across the driver's seat. It was beautiful, I thought, shucking off my stained lab coat. Well, the wire connections were a little rougher than in Doc's DeLorean, and the dials were a bit crooked, but it passed all the tests I had put it through.

"Beautiful," I said aloud. I stood in front of it, admiring my work. It had taken three years to build the machine, and I wished I could have Doc here to thank him for everything he had done. He had the amazing pretense to leave the workshop and all of its contents to me in his will, although the authorities were a bit concerned by the wording "in the event of my sudden absence". I could never truly explain why Doc disappeared seven years ago, but once the police ruled out foul play, the shed was mine. At first, it was just for nostalgic moments. I remember carefully stepping over boxes, telling Jennifer stories about Doc while we sorted through his files. I never really expected to need to rebuild the time-machine. I promised Doc that I wouldn't play around with the future anymore, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

"The plutonium," I mumbled to myself. "Now, Doc said he hadn't used all of it in the DeLorean, but where the hell would he have left it?"

I dug through the appliances on the desk until I found the Geiger counter. "Sweet," I murmured. I had found it a while ago, but I decided to wait to pull out the radioactive material until the last possible moment. Now, I clicked the dial on and swung the detection wand around the room. It clicked slowly, with loud crackling pops of static. It had to be here, but it was just a matter of finding it. I paced the edges of the room with it, and when I got a higher reading from the closet, I set it down and started pulling the boxes out.

"Hey Marty!"

I paused for a moment in my digging. "Roger?"

"Yep!" he called back. "I got the food, stop tinkering with the damn car and come eat before you starve to death!"

I stood back up, my knees popping. Roger, one of my former bandmates, came over every Thursday night with take-out. At first he was trying to distract me from thinking about Jennifer, and now he says that it's to make sure I don't die while working on the car. I walked back into the main room, where Roger was admiring the car, bags of greasy food set on the desk chair.

"It looks…interesting," he said finally. "I guess you decided to keep all the extra stuff outside the engine, then?"

"Yep. And tt's not extra, every bit of it's necessary."

He shrugged. "Right."

"It's actually almost finished," I said. "Just the one piece left. I was looking for it when you got here."

"Really? What's it been, three years?" he whistled. "That's dedication to the car, Marty."

I nodded. "Let me get the last piece, then we can eat."

Roger trailed me into the side room, and I picked up the Geiger counter and waved it around again. The detector was crackling harder now, and I moved the last of the boxes away. There was a tiny door, maybe the size of my hand, barely visible in the corner of the closet. I held the detector up to it, and the detector roared. Jackpot!

I opened it carefully, and there it was: a chunk of silver metal, precisely carved into a cube. "Hey Rog, throw me the gloves from the desk, would you?"

There was a moment where I could hear him shuffle in the room, and then he threw the thick gloves at my head. "So, what is this magical last piece?" he asked me from the doorway.

"Plutonium," I responded evenly, pulling the metal free and standing up again.

He stood back. "Seriously?"

"Yep."

Carefully cradling the metal with my gloves, I cautiously walked back to the DeLorean. I eased the cube into the waiting compartment, then gently pushed it into place. There. It was done, completely done and ready for traveling. A mix of glee and adrenaline flushed through me. After three years, it was finally time.

"How do you even have plutonium—Marty?"

I whirled around. "What's wrong?"

He pointed at my old guitar, string-less and ripped apart, propped up in the corner. "What—did—you—do?" he gasped out.

The guitar. Shit. "I meant to put that away before you got here," I explained. "I knew you were going to—"

"You _mutilated_ it!" he cried out, rushing over to cradle it in his arms. "The strings—the bridge—why? What did it ever do to you?"

I stood next the time machine, my hands hanging at my sides empty. "I needed them," I said softly. "I was out of wires, and I—needed to finish the DeLorean—

Roger stood back up, the pieces of the guitar clattering to the ground. "I have to go."

"Rog, you're overreacting."

"No! I'm not! You're completely different now, Marty!" he yelled. "You're obsessed with rebuilding this _stupid_ car, and you've lost everything else about you! There's life outside this stupid shed, and you haven't ventured out in three years!"

"You don't understand how important this is to me!" I shouted back. "I'm going to get Jennifer back!"

After a moment, he finally spoke softly, grabbing me by the shoulders, "I know you needed time to heal, and I respect that. But this car isn't going to replace her."

I shook my head. "I can get her back. I can't explain how."

"Marty. You need help. I don't know if you're drunk or high or something, but you need to go sleep it off, and then tomorrow, we'll talk. Okay?"

I nodded. He turned me around and steered me towards the cot in the corner of the room. "Just, take a break from the car for tonight, alright? I'm just going to call someone really quick, okay?"

I sat down on the cot and nodded. "Thanks Roger." I said quietly.

He turned and walked into the other room. I got up hurriedly. He was probably calling my parents—trying to toss me in the loony bin. I slipped into the driver's seat of the DeLorean, latching my restraints, trying to close the door as quietly as possible. He didn't seem to have noticed the noise, so I started to tune the destination dials.

May 28th, 1989.

I stared at it for a moment. I couldn't believe the moment was here. Tonight's the night, I thought, I can save her!

With a deep breath, I turned the key in the ignition and tugged up on the emergency brake, the control to the centrifuge necessary for traveling. The centrifuge began to whine as it picked up speed, and Roger ran back into the room.

"What are you doing?" I heard him yell, barely audible over the machine.

"I'm going to fix everything!" I shouted back, before the centrifuge hit 88 mph, and the world as I knew it disappeared in a flash of white light.

I'm on my way, Jennifer.

**A/N: And thus, through an error, Marty is sent back to the Jurassic period... This song really threw me the first time I heard it: I thought the songs were unrelated until I looked up the lyrics to get the story behind it. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a message! Reviews are also greatly appreciated :)**


	4. Pt 3: The Lamb and the Dragon

**A/N: We'll be seeing from Doc briefly before Marty takes over the narrative again. I don't own ****Back to the Future, ****or the rock opera ****Broken Bride****. Roger and Mark are a nod to RENT, which I also do not own. One thing you should know before reading: A centrifuge (scientific apparatus designed to spin test tubes very very quickly) can break or be very dangerous if it isn't level. That's my Biochemistry major chipping in its two cents.**

**A million thanks to Feet on the Ceiling, aka Kirsten, for helping me with plot timing and advice about angst!**

**Here goes!**

* * *

The swell of the anxious crowd had pushed Doc to the far edges of the antechamber, but he had no desire to be in the center of the mob. The highest-in-command, Hill Valley's police chief, was giving instructions about how the approaching army was organized and how they would lead the resistance. The first line of defense, floating carefully at the edges of the crowd, was a group of teenagers on hoverboards. Although they had bulletproof vests strapped to their chests, they were woefully armed with only a kitchen knife each, which someone had scrounged up from the basement of City Hall. Doc watched them anxiously, as they practiced defensive blocking with their arms, taking care to stay balanced on the boards.

"They're just kids," he said aloud, seeing one scruffy teen waving his knife at an imaginary foe. He thought of Marty suddenly, then his boys, before shaking his head. He couldn't get emotional now. The only way he could through the battle and into the time machine was to keep a clear focus.

"They're the best chance that we have," the man next to him said in response. "Not that it's a very good chance, I mean, with this—" he hefted his makeshift weapon, a plank of wood, up for examination.

"Well, it does look fairly dismal right now," Doc said bluntly. His sense of impending doom was overriding social norms of conversation, but this situation wasn't exactly normal, even by his unusual standards. "I wish I knew more about this technology," he said mournfully. "I could try to help arm us. Even if we had a little gasoline, we could make some kind of explosive—"

But Doc knew from the newspapers that gasoline had been mostly phased out in the United States, to be replaced by nuclear and solar power in the 2050's. The man didn't offer another suggestion for him. He looked at his pocketwatch. Eight minutes.

"How exactly did this start?" Doc asked suddenly. "I haven't kept up with the news lately, but that girl mentioned zombies?"

The man looked at him incredulously. "You've been living under a rock if you haven't heard!"

Doc nodded sheepishly. "I'm not exactly from around here."

The man shrugged a little in agreement. "I'm Mark," he said, offering his hand to shake.

"Emmett."

They shook hands stoically, then Mark started to explain, brandishing his plank of wood to emphasize his points. "Well, it started two weeks ago, with the really sudden take-over in Chicago, when one day just—bam—all the politicians are gone. Everyone. Mysterious causes of death, or murders, or kidnapped, never to be heard from again. All within 24 hours—gone. So, naturally, the Chicago police are scrambling, and the feds get involved, protecting the President and a lot of the other senators. But the next day—Los Angeles and New York City—same deal. Gone. Only this time, they take the police chiefs, and that scrambles any effort to try to track Zimbikus because it's an inside job. Then Zimbikus decides—"

"Who?"

"Oh, Zimbikus, the leader. If he can really be the leader of anarchy, you know. Freaking crazy guy, but he's brilliant if he can mobilize that many people. Not that I really wanna call him 'brilliant', but you know what I mean?"

Doc nodded. "Like Hitler."

Mark smacked the plank of wood against his hand. "Exactly. From what I heard about Zimbikus while the internet was still running, he's freaking hardcore. He's had his throat slashed before, but he got it stapled up or something, and now it's this really giant scar all the way—" He gestured across his neck nearly completely around. "That's why they're called Zombies. He says he was brought back to life to change the world. And then there was that ridiculous name he's stuck with. The reporters that managed to get through called him the Zombie leader, and it stuck."

He paused to take a breath from his impassioned rant, glancing at his watch, and Doc nodded for him to keep going.

"Once they hit D.C. on the third day, there were massive internet blackouts across the nation. That's why we haven't gotten much information about where they've hit next. We're guessing that they started to infiltrate the smaller towns, and Hill Valley was a standout. I guess there aren't too many towns like us, because they're sure as hell trying to turn us now. We survived the first two rounds of attack, but there's a hell of a lot more of them out there now… and I heard from someone that Zimbikus himself might be here. It's pretty bad if a bunch of little kids are the best shot we've got."

Mark quickly made the sign of the cross. "Never thought it would end like this," he said quietly.

The bells above City Hall started to chime.

Kids on hoverboards floated up, holding their kitchen knives aloft, and the police chief called out to the crowd, "It's time! Defend this town—defend your country!" Her voice never wavered, and at the end of her proclamation, the barricade was roughly pulled from the door. Doc and the man nodded at each other solemnly as the crowd started to push towards the door, shoving them back.

Doc wasn't a religious man, but he believed in some kind of higher power that created order. Now, while the scared crowd around him called for blood, and he held a rusting metal pipe as his only defense, he couldn't help a silent pleading to that higher being. _Please_, he thought desperately. _This can't be the end—please!_

* * *

"This can't be the end," I muttered, watching the pterodactyls around my car. I stood up as well as I could in the cave, dragging my foot through Jennifer's name I had written in the dust. At the opening of the cave, I dropped into a runner's stance, ignoring the voice in my head saying that this was one of the stupidest ideas I had ever had. I had no choice. If I couldn't get back to the DeLorean, I'd never see Jennifer again.

Adrenaline surged again, and I was running, my shoes slipping in the thick vegetation. A pterodactyl screeched at my movement, and it lunged for me, no longer interested in the DeLorean. I ducked, and its wing swooped above me. It screeched in anger, wheeling around to try it again.

The creature attacking the roof of the car swung toward me, throwing its wings in the air, trying to claim the car as its territory. I covered my head with my arms, slamming up against the DeLorean and then struggling to open the door further. It grabbed the back of my collar and ripped it free from my jacket, nearly lifting me off the ground in the process.

Shouting incomprehensibly, I tried to beat it back with my left arm while getting into the car, and it grabbed my sleeve, ripping the fabric at the elbow. With a tearing noise I was free, and I lunged into the car.

I slammed my hand against the destination time 'up' arrow, and ground the keys into the ignition. The numbers blurred up, and I yanked up on the emergency brake, shouting at the car to hurry while the pterodactyls attacked the outer shell of the car. The centrifuge started whining, and was the circuits cut in, the DeLorean jolted forward, slamming me headfirst into the dashboard and dropping me to the floor.

The light surrounding the car seared my eyes, and I felt like I was being crushed as the car moved through time— The DeLorean rocked off-balance with a screech of metal ripping, and the whine of the centrifuge grew into a howl as it struggled against the change in gravity- for a fleeting moment I dreaded that the machine was broken, that I would be stranded in between dimensions—Doc always oversimplified the concepts of time-travel gone wrong when he explained it to me—

With a sudden drop, the car landed. Breathing heavily, I sat up on the floor mats, hunched over as I felt my face for the damage. Considering I had gotten much more familiar than I would have liked with the dashboard, I was pretty lucky to not have a concussion or a broken nose. There was a gash above my right eyebrow, and I dabbed at it with my remaining jacket sleeve, trying not to wince at the shallow pain.

The smell of gasoline stung sharply in the car, and I looked at the destination time dial cautiously. May 28th, 2115. At least the day is right, still. I tried the key in the ignition again, and the motor whimpered pathetically, grinding parts together to no avail. Damn it. I don't know if they'd have the parts to fix the ignition from the eighties, but at least I was free from the dinosaurs. If I never saw a pterodactyl again, I would die a happy man.

I glanced around the car and gaped at the damage to the back. "God damn it," I said weakly. So that's what the screeching metal sound was: an entire door had been wrenched off its hinges, along with a good portion of the machinery. The flux capacitor looked to be fine tucked away inside the centrifuge, but loose wires hung freely from the damaged parts, sparking intermittently. The temperature regulators, nearly half of the generator, the connections between the centrifuge and the emergency brake— completely gone. Something had cracked the top of the gasoline tank off, but the majority of the liquid remained, dripping slowly from some unknown leak. The plutonium—

"No," I whimpered, reaching out to touch the damaged shell. It had broken open raggedly, and now the steel bowl contained only powdery wisps of plutonium. Even if the machine had been fine, there wasn't nearly enough material for another trip.

Before I could despair over this any further, the car door flew open and a pair of hands pulled me roughly backwards from the car. I fell to the ground heavily, the back of my head scraping against the pavement, and I threw my arms up to try to defend myself. Unluckily for me, my attacker—a younger kid on a hoverboard—was quick to crouch down and hold a knife to my neck. I froze, hands splayed above my shoulders in a weak defense.

"Please—" I gasped, "Don't!"

The boy, not much younger than me, cast a stark silhouette against the red sky. "Think you can take over my town and get away with it?" he hissed, pressing his blade down slightly.

"No! No, you have the wrong person, I'm not from around here—" I begged, careful to not move beneath his knife. "Please, don't kill me!"

"Damien!" a voice called from behind us. "He's unarmed. Leave him alone."

He scowled at me, but lifted his knife. Gratefully, I sat up and rubbed at my neck, finding a thin smear of blood when I pulled my hand away. "What the hell happened to your car?" he poked his knife towards the DeLorean.

"It's—it's a long story," I said. "What's going on?"

A group of teens was racing by on hoverboards, each one brandishing a knife or pipe, only to zip past the burning building on the corner, turning out of view onto Main Street. A digital clock on the face of a building read 3:00pm, but the red light persisted despite the afternoon's warmth. I stood up, looking around at the decimated town. Was there an earthquake? It would explain the leveled buildings, the fires feasting upon them. Even if that was true, shouldn't there at least be some kind of noise? Birds chirping? Dogs barking? Fed-up looters shouting at each other?

The boy hesitated, hovering next to the car, tapping his knife against the metal. He shook his head, his initial tough façade gone. "Please," I tried again, "Tell me what's going on."

He still did not speak.

A rapid round of gunfire crackled nearby, amid sudden screams.

Silence.

My pulse roared in my ears. "Holy shit," I said weakly. "You were supposed to be with them, weren't you?"

He nodded, still not speaking.

There was a sudden grind of metal, and marching footsteps. "There's an army?" I asked.

"They're coming," he said, still stricken. "They're going to kill us all."

I grabbed him by the shoulders. "Who? Who's coming?" I demanded.

Before he could speak, a loud voice filled the streets, presumably over some kind of megaphone system, calling out to the terrified citizens in a deathly slow intonation. "You cowards and your wrathful god will see what power means," it said coldly. "We have warned you multiple times, to no avail. Now, in the fires you'll be cleaned."

"That's Zombikus," Damien said suddenly. "If we can stop him, we can get the army to retreat and we'll have more time to get ready—"

The building on the corner burned steadily, flames crackling loudly. An idea lifted up through the panicked chaos of my thoughts, and my heart dropped just as quickly. Without the blueprints and plutonium, how likely was it that I'd be able to fix the DeLorean and get home? If I was stuck here, I was just as obligated to help fight their battles as anyone else. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the steel door. Leaking gasoline still dripped from the wounded machine. This was the only option.

"The approaching army," I started. "They're coming up this street, right? Main Street?"

"Yeah, I think so."

I exhaled slowly, trying to remain calm. "I need you to go get as many people as you can. We need to be able to move this car without starting it. Hurry."

As Damien swooped back towards City Hall, I turned away from the car to follow him. Although rationally I knew this was the best option, I couldn't think more than one step ahead. Otherwise, I was going to change my mind and break down.

I staggered after Damien, swiping at the gash on my forehead quickly. He already was at the front door, pointing and calling out to people as they spilled out from the building. Trying not to count the number of properly armed people, I scanned the police in their bullet-proof vests.

"Who's in charge here?" I bellowed. Really, I probably looked like a madman from my struggles with pterodactyls and Damien, so I decided that I might as well act like one.

An older woman, armed with a rifle, bulletproof vest and helmet, pushed her way to the front. "That's me," she called out, quickly leveling her gun at my chest.

"No!" I cried out. "I'm not with them!"

"He's not!" Damien chimed in.

She slowly lowered the weapon, still eyeing me suspiciously. "Why weren't you here before the barricade went up?"

"It's a long story," I said, "and it really doesn't look like there's enough time for it right now. I have an idea to stop them, but I'll need some help. Interested?"

* * *

After checking that the car was in neutral, I returned to the back of the car with the team Damien had assembled. "Once we get the signal, we're going to push the car up until that lightpost," I said, pointing. "Then we let go and run like hell. Got that?"

They nodded, nervous sweat shining their faces.

People had flooded out of the shelter in City Hall to watch. Although I couldn't make out faces, many people held their hands up in prayer, and I caught a bit of a shouted Bible verse over the clack-clack-clack of the approaching army. We stood in position, both hands pressed to the car, lunged down into a runner's position. Ready, set.

From the steps of City Hall, the police chief called out, "They're close! Go!"

Damien's hoverboard whirred to full power beneath him, and we all strained to move the car forward, throwing our shoulders against the metal for more leverage. It rolled slowly at first, then gradually picked up speed down the slight incline of the street. At a half-run, we passed the lightpost, and I shouted, "Now! Go!"

The other adults quickly gave one last push, then hurried back. Damien swooshed up on his hoverboard, following them, and I staggered to a stop in the middle of the street. I couldn't move, transfixed by the DeLorean rolling towards the burning building. The soldiers finally came into sight around the corner, and the leader, still shouting into his megaphone, stood at the helm of a tank, guns fixed upon City Hall. He looked over in our direction and started to shout towards us, but the DeLorean reached the flames before he could say anything.

It slammed into the side of the building, and nearly instantaneously, the flash and roar of the explosion threw me to the pavement.

I squinted into the bright light, struggling back to my feet. My DeLorean had died dragon-like, roaring and spewing fire in every direction. The leading tank was shelled out and thrown backwards, and the soldiers on foot that were left were running back to God-knows-where. I turned back towards City Hall, and through my wavering vision, I could just make out the townspeople jumping and celebrating the destruction. They were safe.

Surveying the damage, I dropped to my knees in the street. It was gone. The biggest pieces I could see were the axles, bent and broken beyond repair. Five years of work, gone. Acidic tears dripped down my face, and I swiped them away with my sleeve. The sheer complexity of the machine would have been nearly impossible to repair, let alone replace. Without the DeLorean or the blueprints, I could never get back to 1989. Jennifer was gone. Forever.

I screamed, an animal howl starkly different from the celebrating yells behind me. I'm reminded of another accident aftermath I've witnessed, pavement scraping my knees, thick smoke, broken glass. You didn't make a sound, I thought, and I had screamed loud enough for both of us.

I gasped for breath. I couldn't do this. The memories were flooding back, the years of nightmares, the late nights with an obsessive focus that just made things worse—

"Marty?"

I looked up from my despairing huddle and saw a shock of white hair I thought I'd never see again. "Doc?" I croaked disbelievingly.

**A/N: Yep, an evil cliffhanger :) One chapter left! If you think you've got the end figured out from here, I wouldn't be too sure... Reviews/flames are fabulous :)**


	5. Pt 4: Morning in May

**A/N: Hello readers! For your reading enjoyment, I present the last chapter of ****Broken Bride****. May I note, that the story has been sorted into "angst" for many reasons, and the main reasons will become apparent shortly. "Angst" should probably be in capital letters. Seriously. Take warning.**

**Also, a scene in this chapter is slightly citrus-y flavored, but it's fairly clean…I've seen dirtier on prime-time television. If you think it should be an M-rating, let me know!**

**Edit: Line breaks are not my friend. Hopefully the fifth time fixing them is the charm.**

Previously:

I gasped for breath. I couldn't do this. The memories were flooding back, the years of nightmares, the late nights with an obsessive focus that just made things worse—

"Marty?"

I looked up from my despairing huddle and saw a shock of white hair I thought I'd never see again. "Doc?" I croaked disbelievingly.

* * *

I stood up slowly, transfixed. Maybe I had gone crazy. He couldn't be here, he and Clara and their sons chose to live in the past; it just wasn't possible! Still, my voice squeaked out again, in a hopeful, "Doc?"

"It is you," he said, a warm smile breaking across his face. "I wasn't positive from the distance, but I had a feeling it was you!" God, he hadn't changed a bit from the last time I had seen him, leaning joyfully out of the train with his family. He dropped a metal pipe, letting it clank to the ground, and opened his arms for a hug. His white laboratory coat spread out like wings behind him. "I thought I'd never see you again, my boy!"

Stepping forward, I hugged him fiercely. Any lingering doubts that he was a hallucination vanished in his arms, and I burst into tears. "Oh, Doc, I missed you too!"

He patted my back somewhat awkwardly and quietly murmured, "There, there."

"How—how are you here, Doc?" I asked, snuffling a little. "You said you weren't going to time-travel anymore, that it was too messy to deal with."

He stepped back and sheepishly dropped his gaze to the ground. "I may have vowed that in the past, Marty, but I've always been curious about the future, and that's made me a bit of a tourist, understandably. Have time machine, will travel, after all," he smiled. "It appears that through random chance I've ended up in these unfortunate circumstances, though. Now, I could ask the same thing of you, my dear Martin. I'm 95% certain that when I left you and Jennifer, it was 1985…correct?"

I tried to swipe my tears from my face. "It was, but then she died and I rebuilt the DeLorean," I said. "I wanted to go back in time and save her, but something went wrong and I went too far back, and the pterodactyls tried to kill me!" I tugged at the frayed cloth of my jacket, and continued, "And when I tried to get away, I ended up here and now it's gone, my beautiful machine is gone—"

"Wait, wait, Marty, slow down!" he interrupted, holding me by the shoulders. "You wanted to save whom?"

I drew in a shuddering breath. "Jennifer. She died in 1989, in a car accident. You left me the garage in your will, with all the parts and plutonium you left behind, and I found the old blueprints and rebuilt the DeLorean, but there must have been something wrong, because I ended up in the Jurassic period! There were pterodactyls attacking me and the car, and I barely managed to get here, but there was way too much damage for another trip, and I figured it had thirty gallons of gasoline left in it…so—" I gestured to the remnants of the explosion. "I used it."

"Oh, Marty. I'm so sorry," he said softly.

"At first I wanted to go back and save her, but I've had so many nightmares where it happens again and again and I can't stop it from happening, and I just wanted go back and spend one last morning with her and tell her how much she means to me but I know that I can't—"

I started to cry again.

"Doc, you've got to help me!" I begged, grabbing the front of his lab coat. "Can you bring me back to 1989? Please—I've spent too long working on this to fail now!"

He looked into my eyes sadly for a moment, before saying, "Marty, you know that tampering with the past is quite dangerous. We nearly erased your own existence one hundred times over! Think of the possible repercussions of your actions—your 1989 self absolutely can _not_ know of your presence—"

"I know," I said tearfully. "Please, I won't interfere with anything. I won't even talk to her or try to change her mind! I just want to see her one last time. Then I'll go back to 1992, and pretend everything's normal again."

He sighed, looking back at the celebrating crowd in front of City Hall while seemingly contemplating every possible scenario. He finally nodded. "Against my better judgment," he said, "I will bring you back."

I gasped and hugged him tightly again. "Doc! This is incredible! Thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to—"

"But you must be absolutely certain to not alter the timeline!" Doc wheezed in my tight embrace.

"I know! Repercussions and erasing my existence and disaster and all that!" I gleefully recited, practically jumping from excitement.

"'And all that…'" Doc repeated, shaking his head. "Time travel shouldn't be taken lightly."

I stopped short. "Sorry. Utmost seriousness from here on out. Scout's honor."

"You were never in Boy Scouts, Marty. Follow me, the locomotive should still be right where I left it. We ought to leave before the townspeople start to ask questions—"

We looked over, and indeed, the survivors were cautiously watching us, while the bravest had taken only a few hesitating paces towards us. Damien hovered at the farthest edge of the crowd, gesturing for us to follow him. I shook my head and he paused, confused at my refusal. Doc waved at them, an awkward salute, and started to walk in the other direction down the street. I quickly followed him, trying to ignore the aches throughout my body, and around the corner sat Doc's locomotive, untouched during the entire battle.

As if he had read my mind, he gave a sigh of relief as we approached the machine. "Admittedly, I was worried about the probability of complete destruction. If I had been parked merely a block closer to the approaching army, who knows if it would still be standing!"

I climbed up into the cabin and offered a hand to help him up. In the cabin, Doc started to race around, flipping switches and pulling levers to start the train again.

Once I slumped down in the passenger's seat, I peeled off my destroyed jacket and felt my injuries cautiously. The cut across my forehead, matching scrapes on the back of my arms, a gash on the back of my head—no wonder it felt like my skull was throbbing. A few tender bruises beginning on my back, prodded carefully through my t-shirt. I closed my eyes as the machines started to whir. "Hey Doc," I asked, smiling weakly. "Do you have any bandages or something? Probably wouldn't be nice of me to bleed all over the front lawn."

"I installed a first aid kit a little while ago," he replied. "Medicine is always vastly improved in the future, and I managed to procure a few supplies on one of my previous outings."

I mmh-ed my approval, although I wasn't sure he could hear me over the whirring metal. I felt dizzy, and rubbed at my eyes. How long had it been since I slept? Maybe I was right about the concussion.

"Marty, that's quite a bit of blood. Perhaps I should tend to your wounds before we travel?" Doc asked, sitting into the captain's seat and looking over at me worriedly.

"I'm fine," I lied. "I can wait."

The lights on the dashboard flashed rapidly, and Doc's hand hesitated over the destination dial. "May 28th, 1989," I supplied quickly. "6:30 a.m."

He typed it in, and then looked back over at me. "Address?"

I told him.

"Ready, Marty?"

"Ready."

He smiled to himself slightly, and I closed my eyes as he said, "Initiating travel sequence—"

I tried to fight back the disorientation as the train lifted up and bolted into the air. Although it certainly was a smoother ride than my original machine, may it rest in peace, I felt a sudden prickling all over, pins and needles everywhere.

"Doc—" I tried to call out, but the deafening crescendo of the trip drowned me out easily.

A bright gasp of pain flashed through me, but as I opened my eyes to see blue sky before us, I felt nothing. I was no longer some bag of bones wearily propped up in a chair. I quickly felt my forehead and my elbows and found smooth skin. When I looked down, my torn clothes were replaced with pajama pants and a t-shirt, the ones I had been wearing that morning. My torn jacket still laid on the floor, blood already drying on the frayed threads. The train lurched to a stop and Doc tugged back on the main levers.

"Doc?" I said uncertainly. "We made it, right? I feel…different."

"Great Scott!" he marveled, peering at me like I was a new experiment. "I've never seen this before, not in all my years of traveling. It appears that you have physically regressed to your age at this present time!"

I jumped out of my chair like I had brushed against an exposed wire. "My present age? You mean I'm twenty-two again?"

"It appears so, Marty!"

I peered at my reflection in one of the large dials, still feeling my forehead for my old cut. "This is heavy," I marveled. "So does that mean my 1989 self is still there? I mean, here?"

"I can't be certain!" Doc exclaimed, waving his hands about. "The specifics of time travel have never been elucidated enough to determine the issue of dual beings. This certainly is an interesting change."

I examined my hands. All of my scars from working on the DeLorean were gone, and my guitar calluses were back on my left fingers again. "It's like I never left at all," I said wonderingly.

"This particular situation has never presented itself! Do you remember anything you did that morning that might alert us to your presence?"

I quickly went through the details that had been burned into my memory. "Jennifer's alarm went off at 6:20. She got up to get into the shower, and I went and started some coffee." I could recite the details of the Last Day in my sleep. "It stormed the night before, so I had to—" My eyes widened. "—I got the table umbrella out of the bushes! If it's still there—"

I jumped up from my seat to peer out the windows. We had landed in the field just behind mine and Jennifer's house, squeezed between the other matching houses on the block. Just barely visible over the edge of our fence, the purple and green of our umbrella beckoned to me, still perched haphazardly in the shrubbery.

"It's still there! I should have gotten it by now!" I shot a panicked look at Doc. "How did we just erase my 1989 self? Did we mess something up? We haven't even interacted with anything here yet!"

"On the contrary, Marty, perhaps fate has smiled kindly upon you." His head tilted off to the side, as he started to ponder the mystical reasons of the universe. "Think of the countless people you saved! What you did for them, that was truly commendable bravery." He grabbed me by the shoulders, his intense gaze burning into me. "After all, what are the chances that you would have arrived in the moment Hill Valley faced its complete destruction? Quite minimal, especially considering the damage the DeLorean suffered before the trip—"

"What do you mean?"

"You're replacing your 1989 self of that morning, I believe," he said hesitantly. "Maybe…this is your chance to say goodbye."

A sudden wave of anxiety flooded me. "You mean, I get to go in and see her again, but I have to let her leave? I—I don't know if—" I drew in a shuddering breath and nodded. "I can do this. I promise, I won't interrupt the time-space continuum," I said, my voice wavering at the end. "I'll go back and do everything the same, just like the first morning, and then I'll let her get in her car and leave me—"

My throat tightened up around the words, and I couldn't finish. Doc sat in his chair, solemnly bowing his head. He seemed to be in deep contemplation for a moment.

"Marty," Doc said finally, standing up to peer out the window. "Perhaps, some details of the morning will be different this time."

I looked up at him disbelievingly. "But—but everything you've said about interfering with the past—"

"Sometimes," he interrupted, "the past should be changed."

That original flame of hope, the one that had created a plan, fought sleep for three years, and dragged me through the time-space continuum, ignited again from the ashes. I hugged him tightly. "I can save her, Doc! I can get her back!"

He laughed a little, a sudden change from his usually detached demeanor. "Of course! Alternate timelines get rather complicated, but if it's for the best—"

"It is! Doc, this means so much to me!

He smiled and patted me on the shoulder lightly. "You've earned it Marty—several times over." His smile fell a little. "It seems that whenever I am involved in your life multiple complications ensue, and we tend to erase your very existence every now and then. You've been a great apprentice to me, Marty. Thank you."

"And you've been the best teacher I could have ever asked for," I said, hugging him again. When we stepped apart, a complacent moment of silence fell, until Doc joked—

"Now, why are you wasting your time hanging around with an old man when you can see your girl again?" he said, smiling. "Go save her!"

I laughed and started to climb out of the train compartment. "Tell Clara and the boys we say hi! From the future!" I added dramatically, stumbling down the last step to the ground with significantly less flourish.

A little embarrassed, I started to stride across the field, squinting in the early morning sun towards the houses. It looked like none of the neighbors had been awakened by the roar of the time machine, thankfully, or had absolutely no interests beyond coffee at this hour.

As I reached the gate of our fence, I turned around and waved as the train's engine powered to life again. "Bye Doc," I said softly, even though it was doubtful he could hear me from this distance. I saw him wave quickly before returning to the controls, and the train hovered into the air. In a flash he was gone, and the early spring morning appeared to be completely still, an instant of perfectly frozen time.

* * *

I cautiously tread through the yard, picking up the umbrella and placing it back in its post. As I opened the back door, I heard the pipes squeak as the shower was turned off, then silence. The kitchen remained exactly how I remembered it: the dishes from last night on the drying rack, coffee ready on the counter, yesterday's paper still open on the table. A few socks were strewn in the hallway, trailing from our bedroom to the bathroom, and I slowly picked them up. This seemed unreal, like I was an intruder in someone else's time, and I had to remind myself that it was _my_ morning again. My second chance to make everything right.

Still, I hesitantly peeked into the bedroom, terrified that I would find my sleeping body sprawled out across the bed. The blankets were rumpled, and the ceiling fan turned lazily above me, but I was the only living being in the room. I sank to sit on the bed, tossing the lost socks towards the closet. My ears rang in the morning silence. I tried to remind myself to relax and act normal, but anxiety was zinging through me, bouncing my feet up and down nervously. An amused chuckle burst out of my mouth: I was acting like I was waiting for my first date, not for my wife to return.

The bathroom door squeaked open and I froze. After a few slow steps, Jennifer stepped into the doorway, her hair still wrapped in a towel. She flashed a sleepy smile at me before finishing the last buttons of her shirt. "So, did anything break out there?" she asked, wandering over to the dresser.

I stood in awe. I couldn't believe it. She was here and real and alive! Photographs really hadn't captured the way she smiled, or the way her eyes crinkled a little when she was tired, or her laugh— if this was a dream, I didn't want to ever wake up—

"Hello-ooo," she sang, pulling the towel from her head and tousling her hair. "Earth to Marty!"

I couldn't form a coherent response, watching her. It didn't seem possible, that after three years she could be here, alive again and wonderful, suddenly wrapping her arms around me. Her playful grin slowly fell into a concerned expression, looking up at me. "What's wrong?"

Every part of my mind that worried that she had only been a dream screamed at the physical contact—real, real, real! I closed my eyes and hugged her, her perfume folding around me. "Oh, Jennifer," I breathed, burying my face in her hair. "Nothing's wrong. Everything's going to be alright again."

We kissed softly, and I tried to refresh every detail about her in my memory, every tiny detail I had carefully preserved for during those long three years. This is the chance I had been longing for ever since I started rebuilding the time machine. I had feared her memory wearing away every day, but now we had all the time in the world.

We sank down to the bed, gently pulling away at clothing. "I love you so much, Jennifer," I breathed against her neck, closing my eyes.

I didn't realize I was crying until she reached up to touch my face. "Marty," she said softly, "if there's something wrong, you can tell me. I can help you."

I shook my head, a smile starting on my face again. "No, no, it's fine. I—I had a nightmare, where you were gone and I spent the longest time searching for you…I tried everything to find you again," I whispered, kissing lightly up her neck. "I never gave up. I searched for you for years…"

"My hero," she said, grinning. "Years, huh? Well, back so soon…I think your watch might be broken," she teased lightly.

I smiled. "It's like I never left at all."

* * *

I drifted up out of sleep when I heard keys jingle from the bedside. Tiredly, I reached across the bed for Jennifer, but my hand slid across empty sheets. The sudden image of a white sheet pulled back from the face of my broken bride flashed into my mind, and I jumped, scrambling from the bed. Her keys were gone from the nightstand, and as the front door closed I cried out, "Jennifer!"

I rushed to tug on clothes, any clothes, I didn't care if they matched, lurching down the hallway while pulling them on. She couldn't leave, this was worse than before, I hadn't even said goodbye this time! Forgoing shoes, I threw open the front door as Jennifer started the car.

"Wait!" I yelled, running towards her. The dry grass of the lawn crunched beneath my bare feet, but the only sound I cared about was the squeak of her brakes, which met my panicked ears quickly. Thank God.

She rolled down her window. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up," she said, still smiling. "Go back to sleep."

I shook my head, willing myself to act calm. "Stay here with me! Come back to bed," I added, grabbing her hand.

"I'd love to, Marty, but I can't. I'm sorry. But when I get home from work, maybe we can have a repeat performance…" Jennifer grinned impishly. "I'll be back at four, alright?"

She started to back out of the driveway again, and time seemed to slow down. The first time, I hadn't realized this was the last goodbye, and I had just grabbed the newspaper and walked back inside. Now I felt three years of sorrow concentrated into one moment, tearing me open on the front lawn while Jennifer continued, unaware of her fate and my agony.

I screamed again, "No! Please!"

Her car lurched to a stop again, parked perilously close to our mailbox. "Marty," she said, "I can't miss this presentation at work!"

The words were out before I could think about them. "Let me come with you!" I blurted desperately.

"What? Don't you have to meet up with the guys later?"

"I'll take the bus back! I can run some errands, just little things!"

"Alright, come on. I'm gonna be late!"

* * *

I sat back in the passenger seat as the car drifted down the streets. I thought frantically through my options, dismissing them at the very first flaw I could conceive of. _There has to be some way out of this!_

"How are you going to run errands without shoes?" Jennifer asked, looking over.

Pulled out of my panic, I glanced down at my t-shirt, frayed shorts and aforementioned bare feet, and shrugged. Clothes were the least of my concerns right now. "Hey, we should turn on Hadsall Street, alright? I know a shortcut!"

A bored construction worker holding a sign waved us down Main Street, blocking the side street. No! Jennifer sighed, and the car continued moving forward. "They're taking forever to finish the construction! I'll turn at the light."

The familiar intersection loomed before us, and the car clock clicked over to 7:32. I blanched. Maybe it won't happen, I thought, we could be a few seconds off, that would be all the time we need to make it through—

An odd feeling started to seep through me, a paralyzed calm before the storm. "Jennifer," I said quietly, reaching over to take her hand. "I want you to know that I love you very much."

"I love you too, Marty," she said, looking over at me. "Are you alright? You seem jumpy this morning. Is everything al—"

I gasped as we entered the intersection and the front of a truck gleamed right behind Jennifer. She started to turn to find the cause of my shock, but—

Impact.

Blackness.

My eyes suddenly wrenched open. Broken glass and twisted metal blurred before me and the familiar tang of gasoline hung in the air. I couldn't hear Jennifer, but my hand was still entwined with hers. "Jen? I tried to say, adrenaline flooding through me. She didn't move, slumped over the center console towards me. The air in the car suddenly felt too thick to move. I tried again and only a weak cough emerged, scraping along my throat. _Please._

The locked seatbelt held tight across my chest, and my head hung limply inches from my broken window. My memory of ravaged metal and broken glass scattered across the street suddenly blurred with an approaching army, and I shook my head. _This couldn't have been for nothing—she called me her hero, this can't be—_

Pain suddenly grabbed me, knocking any conscious thought from my mind in an instant.

There was nothing.

And then there was Jennifer, whole again in my embrace. There was no longer any pain, and as she touched my cheek I felt her concern for me, for my strange behavior that morning. And just as quickly, I knew that she knew everything: from her first death to the DeLorean, from pterodactyls to the end of the world, and then to Doc again. Everything about those terrible three years flashed between us, but I just pulled Jennifer closer to me.

Everything was going to be okay. We're going home.

* * *

As the train stopped in the landing field, Doc pulled the levers to a halt and sat hunched over in his seat. The previous date, May 31st, 1989, blinked at him before fading to a blank display. He could hear the boys playing in the distance, and for a moment he was startled that only one minute had passed since he had left them ages ago. He felt ancient.

Marty's torn jacket lay on the floor, pushed nearly completely beneath the seat, and Doc picked it up carefully, like the anachronism may explode at any moment. He knew in the back of his mind that he should destroy it: the fabric alone was still unknown technology, let alone the style, but he couldn't bear to let it out of his grasp. He carefully clambered down the steps of the time machine, and Clara stood waiting for him, as always. She paused, taking in his world-worn appearance, before stepping forward and cautiously asking, "Emmett? What happened?"

He shook his head, clinging to Marty's jacket. "I think," he said, clearing his throat. "I think I shall be remaining in the present for a while."

Although he had quietly recounted the simplest details of his travels to Clara, when his sons asked about the state of the future, Doc would not explain the horrific apocalypse or the trials Marty had endured. He merely stated that the future was what they would make it, though he wasn't sure how much he believed this optimism himself. The only selfish consolation he had was that even if that apocalyptic timeline still existed, it would at least happen outside his family members' lifetimes.

He did not travel for several months after that fateful trip; even then, he ventured only within his set time range, when he knew everything would be alright. He loved the life he had here in 1885 with Clara and the boys, but even so, Marty's jacket hung on a chair in his laboratory as a reminder of his young assistant. Occasionally, while deep in thought, he would look up and expect to see Marty, petting Einstein and patiently waiting for Doc to finish an experiement. Long ago, he had promised to never interfere with the natural chain of events, and he intended to keep that vow.

**A/N: I debated long and hard about the ending of this fic, chatted up "Feet on the Ceiling" for some advice (thanks for letting me ramble!), and decided for full-out angst. It stays true to the original rock opera by Ludo, and the last song is just heartbreaking when you understand the story on the Traveler. I wholeheartedly recommend listening to the CD "Broken Bride" by Ludo, both for the awesome music as well as the great story it tells.**

**I really liked writing for Doc, since I have personal "Mad scientist" aspirations :) I had a bit of trouble with Jennifer, and I'm not sure about Marty: I think I like it, but does he sound overly-angsty? Not angsty enough?**

**And thus ends the tale of the doomed Traveler and his broken bride. Let me know what you think, be it praise or flames :) Thanks for reading!**


End file.
